Not only do they have an app, but i remember their webpage being unreachable on my iPad a couple years ago because they had a full-page interstitial ad for their app, and dismissing it sent you into a redirect loop.
Also: Just because the publishing media has one of those apps, it doesn't mean that one of their writers can't express his dislike for those apps. If anything it proves that he has a certain independence from the business facing side and that's always good.
Sorry, not sure if I was clear. What I meant was: Techcrunch shouldn't proudly point out that everyone else is making reading on a mobile device unenjoyable by asking if you want to install an app, because they themselves crap so much non-content on your screen and make their own mobile experience an unenjoyable one.
Apps are only popular because we don't do mobile web good enough.
Most of the mobile web is either a banner asking download the app, or tons of adds with no room for content.
Mobile web doesn't come anywhere close to replicating the fluidity and functionality of a native app and it never will. Running a dedicated application designed for the system will always beat an application designed for the system on top of the system (web browser). I prefer native applications every time.
Blekko shipped an app -- izik -- which was extremely fluid even though it was actually a webpage. You and I probably have no idea which of the apparently native apps we use every day are actually webpages.
No, it's painfully obvious when applications are using a full-panel WebView with UI elements and transitions that aren't system-defined. It's also pretty obvious when you have no network and the app suddenly doesn't load.
What about the case where you plan on using the app one time for a grand total of 30 seconds? Is the trouble of visiting the App Store, authenticating, installing, launching, allowing permissions and onboarding really worthwhile? Or is that a case for the web's dynamic runtime?
The big catch is assuming that the team is big enough to put all the features into a variety of native apps.
It is possible that for a small team given the choice of one great web app or splitting time between Windows/OSx/iPhone/Android that the web app is superior.
Yeah, but maybe I just want to, you know, read an article and not replicate the fluidity and functionality of a native app. Reading articles worked just fine with NCSA Mosaic, I promise it works fine mith Mobile Safari too.
OP's argument was that mobile apps are only popular because the mobile web is not good enough. Obviously when the mobile web is used for it's original intent -- pages of information, mostly text, some images -- and not full web applications with heavy JavaScript dependencies and animation and share buttons and shit, it's a pleasure to use.
"Yeah, but maybe I just want to, you know, read an article and not replicate the fluidity and functionality of a native app."
Exactly. There are, what, a billion or so websites nowadays?
Obviously installing an app for even a tiny fraction of a percent of those is not going to happen. Sooner or later, site owners are going to have to accept this basic fact.
It's also because people don't take you seriously without one.
I recently made a webapp that works 100% as well as a native app (just as fluid & just as many features), but people wondered where the 'real app' was for Android and iOS.
I always thought: "Well, those apps, I don't know. I don't use webapps on the pc anymore, because the browser does everyting. And some day, the mobile browser will be just as good and no one will need those apps."
That was before peope discovered mobile ads, access to phonebook/email etc pp.
Shameless plug ahead, I believe in this idea so much I co-founded a company to help spread the idea and see it through.
Every person should have their own domain name and have the ability to run arbitrary services in the cloud. The price of computing power and bandwidth has come down so much that it's completely practical to do this now.
Would love feedback/thoughts: https://portal.cloud?invite=hn (invite code is just there so free domain discount is applied).
The most important thing is that no company (including mine) should ever have the ability to dominate the internet the way Google, Facebook, and Twitter do today.
We should be able to move from cloud provider to cloud provider with very little friction. If we truly control our own domain names, apps, and data this isn't even hard to do.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter could be just apps we run (webmail, web search, photo sharing, status updates). We shouldn't have to give up our privacy and be locked into a service that feeds us a hundred ads a day just to be able to check our email, search the web, share photos, or post 140 characters to the web.
I like the headline! I was initially intrigued because I just started a side project, bought the domain, and set up Google Apps for email. Then I'll probably set up a Medium blog for the project. I thought "oh neat, it's all contained in here, and a free domain that's cool!" Then I saw the price point: $8/mo. Yeah sorry, you need to be more competitive for groups that only want a few services. Google Apps is $5/mo and Medium is free...is it worth an extra $3/mo for me to decentralize project/business type emails and documents? Not really, because I don't have any sensitive documents that I don't care for Google to have access to. Maybe if I were a journalist starting a secretive blog and needing to communicate between journalists over sensitive information - yeah, I could see that.
I think those are the kinds of people you're going to want to market to. Reasonably priced for sensitive documents and files, but more than conventional app solutions who don't really need the extra decentralized security.
You talk about "decentralizing" but you mention Google Apps for e-mail and Medium for a blog. If you want to decentralize, you should be running these things on your own server(s) that you control.
Decentralized is for sensitive things with a need for "extra decentralized security," and that most conventional needs can be met more adequately, and cheaply, with the services 'everyone' already uses.
Basically, it's a philosophical difference, but the ideas expressed may give proponents of decentralization some insight into why we are currently in another centralizing phase of the internet.
It's definitely not competitive with free yet but we'll get there :P
Google Apps is $60/yr ($70/yr including a domain) but is pretty much just Google Docs and Gmail.
Right now with Portal, for $96 a year you have your own secure and private place in the cloud to run stuff. A domain name, IP address, SSL certificate, SSD storage, and 4-8 VMs running apps from any developer (not just the few apps Google offers).
Medium is free but doesn't let you use your own domain name. Most blog services that do have custom domains with SSL charge more than $100 a year for this alone (and they don't run your blog in a private VM). On Portal, a blog is just another app and may require ~20% of your $8 / mo server plan.
Cool. I don't wanna spoil your idea, but having an army of developers behind gmail spam-protection is a really big "no-go" for moving my mail to my own IMAP service on a let's say digital ocean vm. I've paid the price for that ... the privacy of my e-mails, but whatever, I managed to live with that since a decade.
Also, although I'm a web-dev and have "insights" on most of the tech news/trends I would never recommend to host a blog on your own VM. It would be much better if it's a paid hosting service, specialised let's say in WordPress, than having this on your own VM shared with your e-mail service.
And what is your main difference, between having a DigitalOcean + Installed app versus Portal?
Preventing spam is a lot easier than it was a decade ago. The software is far better, and there are now things like SPF records that make it much easier. Email on Portal is a very basic Dovecot+Postfix server with Roundcube for webmail. It's not as good as Gmail but it works quite well.
Not so long from now we'll have something better than Gmail. There are a lot more developers outside of the Gmail team than inside of it. What's been missing is a platform for them to develop on.
DigitalOcean has "one-click" apps but they're really just installers that can be run once. Configuration and upgrades are completely manual after the first step. You still have to be a sysadmin to do almost anything. Portal doesn't require any sysadmin tinkering. Upgrades and configuration are automatic.
Every Portal app runs in a separate VM and they're are all mapped to your domain name. Every user has an SSL certificate and a dedicated IP address. Completely non-technical people can use it to run the kinds of things that only hackers run today.
We would like to see a world where companies like Automattic support self-hosted versions of their products. Kind of like desktop software companies support paid version of their products. That's not the case today, but there's no reason people in the future can't run their own server software, and have it be very reliable and 100% supported by the app developer.
38 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadhttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aol.mobile...
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/techcrunch/id526058642?mt=8
Perhaps one should become a good example of an enjoyable mobile experience before one starts throwing stones.
It is possible that for a small team given the choice of one great web app or splitting time between Windows/OSx/iPhone/Android that the web app is superior.
Exactly. There are, what, a billion or so websites nowadays?
Obviously installing an app for even a tiny fraction of a percent of those is not going to happen. Sooner or later, site owners are going to have to accept this basic fact.
I recently made a webapp that works 100% as well as a native app (just as fluid & just as many features), but people wondered where the 'real app' was for Android and iOS.
That was before peope discovered mobile ads, access to phonebook/email etc pp.
Maybe it'll change.
Redecentralize all internet services!
Shameless plug ahead, I believe in this idea so much I co-founded a company to help spread the idea and see it through.
Every person should have their own domain name and have the ability to run arbitrary services in the cloud. The price of computing power and bandwidth has come down so much that it's completely practical to do this now.
Would love feedback/thoughts: https://portal.cloud?invite=hn (invite code is just there so free domain discount is applied).
The most important thing is that no company (including mine) should ever have the ability to dominate the internet the way Google, Facebook, and Twitter do today.
We should be able to move from cloud provider to cloud provider with very little friction. If we truly control our own domain names, apps, and data this isn't even hard to do.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter could be just apps we run (webmail, web search, photo sharing, status updates). We shouldn't have to give up our privacy and be locked into a service that feeds us a hundred ads a day just to be able to check our email, search the web, share photos, or post 140 characters to the web.
I think those are the kinds of people you're going to want to market to. Reasonably priced for sensitive documents and files, but more than conventional app solutions who don't really need the extra decentralized security.
You talk about "decentralizing" but you mention Google Apps for e-mail and Medium for a blog. If you want to decentralize, you should be running these things on your own server(s) that you control.
What am I missing?
Decentralized is for sensitive things with a need for "extra decentralized security," and that most conventional needs can be met more adequately, and cheaply, with the services 'everyone' already uses.
Basically, it's a philosophical difference, but the ideas expressed may give proponents of decentralization some insight into why we are currently in another centralizing phase of the internet.
Google Apps is $60/yr ($70/yr including a domain) but is pretty much just Google Docs and Gmail.
Right now with Portal, for $96 a year you have your own secure and private place in the cloud to run stuff. A domain name, IP address, SSL certificate, SSD storage, and 4-8 VMs running apps from any developer (not just the few apps Google offers).
Medium is free but doesn't let you use your own domain name. Most blog services that do have custom domains with SSL charge more than $100 a year for this alone (and they don't run your blog in a private VM). On Portal, a blog is just another app and may require ~20% of your $8 / mo server plan.
Also, although I'm a web-dev and have "insights" on most of the tech news/trends I would never recommend to host a blog on your own VM. It would be much better if it's a paid hosting service, specialised let's say in WordPress, than having this on your own VM shared with your e-mail service.
And what is your main difference, between having a DigitalOcean + Installed app versus Portal?
Preventing spam is a lot easier than it was a decade ago. The software is far better, and there are now things like SPF records that make it much easier. Email on Portal is a very basic Dovecot+Postfix server with Roundcube for webmail. It's not as good as Gmail but it works quite well.
Not so long from now we'll have something better than Gmail. There are a lot more developers outside of the Gmail team than inside of it. What's been missing is a platform for them to develop on.
DigitalOcean has "one-click" apps but they're really just installers that can be run once. Configuration and upgrades are completely manual after the first step. You still have to be a sysadmin to do almost anything. Portal doesn't require any sysadmin tinkering. Upgrades and configuration are automatic.
Every Portal app runs in a separate VM and they're are all mapped to your domain name. Every user has an SSL certificate and a dedicated IP address. Completely non-technical people can use it to run the kinds of things that only hackers run today.
We would like to see a world where companies like Automattic support self-hosted versions of their products. Kind of like desktop software companies support paid version of their products. That's not the case today, but there's no reason people in the future can't run their own server software, and have it be very reliable and 100% supported by the app developer.